It was almost three years ago that I last witnessed A Place to Bury Strangers live, and it’s taken me till nearly now to get over it. Given that I’ve seen Swans, Sunn O))) and Whitehouse, this should give some measure of the impact of their live show.
The build-up was pleasant: the no-fi punk racket of York’s Fawn Spots and the choppy post-punk pop of September Girls provided contrast, and in many ways, the two support acts reflect the two aspects of the headliners, namely noise and dark pop melodies.
Fawn Spots may have John Robb’s backing, as well as my own, but this is the first time I’ve seen the guys seem nervous. There’s none of their usual lip or bravado, and instead they power through their thrashabout set showcasing tracks from recently released debut album ‘From Safer Place’ with intense focus and urgency. It’s also the first time I’ve seen them with a bassist. His presence centre-stage goes some way to tempering their trebly squall, but only a little, and before you know it, they’ve disappeared with little more than a polite ‘thanks’.
Dublin fivesome September Girls are forced to start their set twice after the first attempt is engulfed in a tidal wave of ugly feedback from the monitors. Ironically, it’s nothing compared to what would be shredding the same speaker cones an hour later. Once you get past the amusing Spice Girls comparisons (they’re female and there are five of them) and the gawping (did I mention there are five women on stage, of a distinctly rock chick persuasion on stage singing, and playing musical instruments?), what you have is a neat set of tunes. Dark currents run deep through their melody-driven songs, and they’re confident and tight. Of course, when it comes to live music, everyone’s a critic, and the bozo to my left bawling at his mates also observed this. “She can play. She can fuckin’ play, that fuckin’ drummer girl.” It’s true, but then of course she can.
A Place to Bury Strangers can play, too. Moreover, they can play louder than most bands. They launched into their set behind a wall of smoke and blinding strobes with the insistent bass-led ‘We’ve Come So Far’. I found myself wondering if they weren’t going to achieve the excruciating levels of volume I’d witnessed previously. I also debated with myself whether or not it had simply been the combination of beer and the aforementioned strobes and smoke that had left the impression of a clear sound that escalated into an agonizing roar around the mid point. But no. I tempered my booze intake and my earplugs were firmly in place, but despite my familiarity with their back catalogue, the show is more about challenging the senses and rearranging the molecules than playing the hits in a way you can get down to. In other words, APTBS in the studio are noisy with tunes. Live, they’re something else entirely, and not for the faint-hearted. Or the epileptic.
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‘You Are The One’, lead single from previous album, ‘Worship’ was something of a standout, landing somewhere before the set became an ear-bleeding aural blur. You can’t see what’s going on. You can’t hear what’s going on. You wonder if you’re going to live, of it your body and mind will simply cave in under the pressure of such a sustained assault. The slow-paced ‘Deeper’, with its subsonic bass grind provided some respite and change in both tempo and tone, but punished the senses from another end of the sonic spectrum.
Just when things had appeared to reach a climax worth of a set finale, I found myself having to step aside while a Marchall amp was lugged from the stage and wheeled through the crowd. Somehow, in the near-darkness and overall chaos, the band managed to set up their kit in the middle of the from and crank out a handful more tracks,with ‘What We Don’t See’ shrieking out of the shattering PA. Or maybe that was earlier. Memories are rendered indistinct as the sensory overload exceeds the point of what’s bearable. It goes far beyond music and reaches far into the realms of art that exists to challenge every cliché and everything you know about live rock shows. The end result is the most glorious and spectacular obliteration.
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